


Fresh Paint

by freckliephil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Bits of angst but its fleeting i promise, Buying a HOUSE, Coming Out, Getting a Dog, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Moving Out, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckliephil/pseuds/freckliephil
Summary: "It’s just a house, they have to keep reminding themselves. Just a house, but it feels bigger."





	Fresh Paint

The outside of the house is a light, almost pastel green color that neither of them expected to like. 

There had been a moment, a week into the process where their real estate agent, Marisol, had texted Dan to break the news that the house might be another no-go. Phil had read the text over Dan’s shoulder, squeezed his arm, and moved to the kitchen to uncork a bottle of wine. 

“Drinking our feelings, are we?” Dan had asked with his disappointed smile. Phil handed him a glass.

“The outside is a weird color, anyway.” Phil had responded. 

Dan had fallen in love with the bay window in the living room and the bathtub in the master bathroom. Phil had spent forever upstairs, methodologically planning where lighting and camera equipment would go. They’d started referring to it as “the house” the day after they’d toured it, because they were still that bad at not letting each other get their hopes up. 

“A bit swampy, yeah.” 

“Kinda shrek-like if you ask me.” 

“Shrek’s dream home.” Dan said, full-on pouting into his wine glass. Phil had let him mope, pulling out his laptop and pulling up a painfully familiar house-hunting website. 

They don’t finish the bottle of wine until two weeks later when they sign their names together on the deed of their dream house with the swampy green exterior and the bay window. Their real estate agent calls them a force to be reckoned with. Phil calls it fate and Dan tells him to shut up, and they kiss sloppily in the car on the ride back to the apartment that won’t be theirs for much longer. 

***

Dan hooks his finger in Phil’s belt loop and uses the other hand to unlock the door. They’re giddy and overwhelmed with emotion and Dan really hopes their new elderly neighbor can’t see the two of them frantically pushing at each other and giggling as they stumble with the lock. 

“Open the door!” Phil says, bouncing from foot to foot with anticipation. 

“Oh good idea, babe,” Dan says sarcastically when the lock finally turns, “hadn’t thought of that.”

“Shut up,” Phil says in return, pulling him into the house, their house, by placing both hands on either cheek and kissing him all the way into the kitchen. 

Their teeth keep knocking together with how much they’re smiling, and they barely take in the empty walls and rooms that look ginormous when void of stuff. They go from room to room, never letting a moment pass that they’re not touching in some way. 

Being in an empty house is a weird feeling, especially since they’d first toured this place furnished and half-lived in. It’s quiet, for one. There’s no backdrop of sirens, no busy street or hectic London energy running from the ground to the ceiling. They’re close enough to the city that they can always go find it when they need to exist in a space that lives and breathes, but they’ll definitely take the sound of the neighbor’s dog barking over people screaming and cars alarms at 3 am. 

The walls seem slightly too bright and the rooms seem both bigger and smaller than they’d expected, somehow. It feels like a project, exciting and new and full of nothing but potential. It’s a bit terrifying, sure, because the next step is going back to the flat that’s no longer theirs and moving box after box of their lives up to this point, bringing them to this new life they get to begin working on. 

It’s just a house, they have to keep reminding themselves. Just a house, but it feels bigger. 

And with its breakfast bar in the kitchen and the giant windows in their new bedroom that look into the back garden, it feels like them. Already it feels like home. 

**

It’s been two weeks and their life is still mostly in boxes. 

The overwhelming feeling of “unfinished” hangs in the air and on the walls where the pictures and art should go, if they can ever locate the fucking box where it currently lives. Dan keeps walking into different rooms and then walking immediately out of them, the stress having to wade through a sea of cardboard and packing tape overpowering the need for whatever it was he may have looking for.. Phil keeps sighing under his breath when they’re trying to watch tv in the living room, surrounded on all sides by things that still need to find a permanent place. 

They keep putting it off, and neither of them seem to be able to state out loud why that is. Neither of them have been to therapy since the move, so that’s probably a big part of it. The main problem doesn’t seem to lay entirely in the unpacked boxes, though. 

At least, not literally. 

The problem is that they’re still getting questions on the internet from fans that neither of them know how to answer. They still haven’t had the courage to sit down and make a final decision about how to answer questions that people don’t know that they already know the answer to. Or do know. Or don’t know that they don’t know what they think they know. 

It’s complicated, and they both know what’s coming but there’s always been a difference between knowing the future and living it. 

The forever home, a dog, marriage, kids, it all goes together for them, and the unspoken part is starting to claw its way to the surface. 

It’s not that they don’t talk about the future of their careers, or being transparent, or what it all means for them to keep things private. It’s that they’ve talked it to death over the past 10 years, and it remains the one thing they can’t make a decision about. 

Dan says, “Can we just be happy and ignore that part?.” 

And Phil says, “I’m tired of ignoring it. So are you.” 

And they talk for three hours, and it leads back to the same conclusion it always does. Indecision. 

“It’s not that i’m not ready,” Dan says, frustrated. 

“I know.” Phil says, because he does. They’ve both been ready for years. 

“I just don’t even know what it would look like.” 

“That's for us to figure out.” 

“What if we fuck it up?” Dan asks, and he sounds vaguely like the 18 year old who walked into Phil’s life with an ocean of insecurities and a fierce determination to put all of the passion he had into the world some way or another. 

It’s quiet between them, because it’s still shocking that they’re here. They’ve been talking and dreaming about these exact moments since they were too young to even fathom the life they could have when they got here. 

“One day we’ll have a house and a dog and a family and everything will work itself out,” they used to tell each other. Except now they had the house, and the other parts would surely start falling into place sooner rather than later, and it didn’t make the conversation go away. 

“Problems hardly ever resolve themselves,” Phil’s therapist had told him upon one of his first sessions, almost a year ago. 

There was a time, back when things were so incredibly hard, when their floors had been replaced by eggshells and they slept alone half the nights, in separate rooms and separate beds because the silence between them got too loud. Phil had a bag packed, ready to hop on a train to go find solace in the arms of a family and a house that felt comfortable in a way their apartment used to. Dan had come in to the room, gently took the bag off of Phil’s shoulders, and started unpacking it. 

“I don’t want you to go,” He’d said. Simple, obvious, and truthful in a way that contrasted so much of his personality lately. 

Phil had nodded, already knowing he’d stay. He’d been angry, and hurt, but he knew in his heart that he’d never go if Dan asked him to stay. 

“I want to make this better. I want us to be in love again.” Dan had said, and then started crying. 

“We’re still in love.” Phil replied, speaking the words into Dan’s hair as he held him through his sobs, realizing only then how true those words were, “I’ll never not be in love with you.”

They had collapsed onto the bed then, tearful and frustrated and a little bit heartbroken. They’d alternated between heated kisses and drying each other’s tears, apologizing and making love and pressing their bodies and hearts together with the intent to fix the mess that they’d tripped and fallen into. 

And afterwards they’d talked about the future for the first time in a long time. They cemented a plan that became an anchor, the thought of a house and a dog and a garden becoming a mantra when they needed to look forward together. That night, they couldn’t think about the other parts of a future. They needed the light at the end of the tunnel, and that light seemed so blinding that they didn’t see any lingering darkness it could bring. 

So when Dan says “What if we fuck it up?” Phil knows to drop the subject. He lets them both process some more this life they’ve fallen into, finally. 

They watch a movie, they make dinner, and Phil asks if they should eat at the table or maybe even the breakfast bar. They end up back on the sofa, in their palace of unpacked potential. 

And Dan surprises him. 

“I think we need to do it.” he says, seemingly out of nowhere. 

“Do what?” Phil asks, warm and sleepy and completely forgetting any conversation they’d had earlier. 

“Come out, or whatever that means for us. I think we should. Like, soon.”

 

***

Dan has headphones in when Phil comes into the kitchen, causing him to jump at the sudden noise of Phil’s hands drumming loudly on the breakfast bar where Dan is sat replying to emails. 

“Jesus Christ, what?” he asks, eyeing his boyfriend suspiciously.

He can tell within half a second that Phil is anxious by the way he sustains eye contact and continues his non-rhythmic tapping on the countertop. 

“I want to buy seeds,” he says, his voice level despite the controlled chaos behind his eyes. Dan knows this mood. They’ve lived together for years, navigating not just one, but two anxious, serotonin deficient brains. Not only does he know that sometimes Phil feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his own skin, but he can relate to that feeling pretty strongly. 

“Seeds.” Dan repeats, removing his headphones and closing his laptop. 

Phil nods, “Yeah, seeds. I’ve been thinking, I wanna start a garden. We can grow, like, vegetables and flowers and stuff. That way we have to eat healthy once in a while, because we have vegetables that we grew, and that weird corner of the living room thats really dark? Well, we could put like, a vase with flowers over there to brighten it up! And-” 

“Phil.” Dan interrupts his rambling, knowing he’ll talk himself out of breath and into a panic if Dan doesn’t step in. “We can start a garden, I’m into it.” 

“Okay,” Phil says. His hand stops drumming momentarily. He sighs. “Sorry–I’m being weird, aren’t I?”

“Just a tad manic,” Dan says, but he’s smiling reassuringly. He grabs Phil’s hand and pulls him closer until Phil is in his arms. Dan tries to be grounding in the way that Phil always is for him when he needs it. He places a hand on Phil’s lower back, rubbing circles there and letting Phil slouch into him, supporting his body weight willingly. He eventually whispers, “What’s up, babe? Where’s it coming from?” 

Phil sighs, and Dan is relieved to hear how much more relaxed he sounds, enveloped in the hug. 

“Boxes, furniture, unpacking,” Phil says, wrapping his arms around Dan’s neck. “Fucking papercuts.” 

Dan snorts, because he knows it’s okay to do so. They both know that they’re in this stress, this amazing yet overwhelming life transition together, and it’s exciting and perfect but also so anxiety inducing for both of them. 

“How about,” Dan says, moving his hand to Phil’s waist, “we go take a nap and then spend the rest of the night avoiding the boxes by watching gardening tutoriels and eating pizza in bed?” 

“Yes,” Phil says automatically, grabbing Dan’s face and planting a wet kiss on his lips, “a hundred percent yes, I love you so much.”

Dan laughs and leads them up the stairs to the bedroom. 

They do manage to unpack a few boxes before their nap, mostly because it’s still rainy and cold despite the promise of spring sunshine in the coming weeks, and one of their favorite blankets is at the bottom of a living room box for some reason. 

When they wake up again at almost 5 pm, Phil grabs a pen and a notebook “for notes!”, and Dan rolls his eyes but nevertheless pauses the video every once in a while so Phil can write things down. 

*

Louise brings a toddler into their home after they’ve finally unpacked all the boxes and Phil asks over a 3pm coffee and a teasing grin if they’re finally on her level of adulthood. 

“Listen,” she says wryly, “We both live exciting lives, regardless of the fact that your excitement is world tours and taking a million lovely holidays and my excitement is cleaning up toddler vom and stepping on sparkly legos. We needn’t compare the glamour.” 

Dan is making doe eyes at Pearl a mere 5 feet away. Phil has been resisting the urge to grab at his chest dramatically since their guests got here. Dan loves babies and babies love Dan and so does Phil and the simple truth is that the two of them need to have a conversation very soon. 

“Are you implying that I could never be a mum, Louise?” Phil asks, and Dan snorts at him from where he’s sat on the floor.

“Philip.” He says, a statement in and of itself. It means, stop with the pregnancy thing it’s an old meme.

“Daniel.” Phil replies, and it means, i’ll never stop and you can’t make me. 

“I think the entire world and all of tumblr anxiously awaits the day the two of you have children, me included.” Louise says, interrupting their mini staring contest. 

Phil wants to say same.

“Dog first.” Dan says. 

Phil nods. It’s a good point.

“Dog first for sure.”

***

The guest bedroom has “Phil’s” old bed but a new set of bed sheets and a big, fluffy comforter that they ordered online. The walls are a violent cerulean, something that threw them both off when they first saw the house. 

Their agent had explained to them that the previous owners had two children, and the room used to belong to the younger of the two. She’d wanted an “under the sea” theme. 

“Entirely too much,” Dan had said with a grin

Phil had laughed, grabbed his arm, and steered him out of the room while nodding his head as Marisol exclaimed, in that classic never-ending optimism of hers, “There’s always more paint in the world!”

A month later, they’re bringing home cans of paint from the department store, changing into old clothes they don’t mind ruining, and hooking up their bluetooth speaker to Dan’s laptop. They move the furniture to the middle to the room--the bed and the dresser being the only pieces that inhabit the space at this point--and lay out plastic to protect the carpet. 

Dan groans and whines at first, because painting is only fun in movies or when you’re eleven years old and your parents let you decorate your own space for the first time. Phil shushes him with an amused grin, turning the music up to drown out Dan’s moaning. 

They get done with one wall, and then two, and by the time they’re both working at opposite ends of the same wall, Dan is humming under his breath. It’s hard work, but around halfway through the second wall they agree to change the playlist to something more upbeat, and it helps. 

Plus, Phil sheds his hoodie and is therefore showing a bit more skin in his old tshirt, which keeps riding up to show tiny slivers of his stomach and hipbones. It’s a good view. 

“My eyes are up here, Howell.” Phil says, clearly having caught Dan staring. 

Dan smirks, meeting Phil’s eyes defiantly. “Is it a crime to appreciate art?” 

Phil rolls his eyes, but Dan notices the faint blush on his cheeks. One would think that they would have grown immune to each other’s flirting after so many years of nearly-constant compliments and affection, but Phil still has a tendency to stutter and blush just as deep a red as he did when they first met. Dan can’t blame him though; he’s guilty of the same thing. It blows his mind a bit that they can still have this much of an effect on each other. 

They’d taken a quiz online once about love languages, something Dan’s therapist had recommended just because it was fun and good information to know about a partner. It had come as absolutely no shock that Dan’s main love language was “words of affirmation” while Phil’s was “physical touch”. It worked out pretty well, honestly, as Dan never minded being manhandled and poked and prodded by the love of his life, while also finding it endearing the way that Phil never stops getting flustered and blushy when Dan points out how attractive he is. 

It’s balance, the way they always seem to fall together in complementary ways. Dan had never been a hugger, having grown up in a family that always held each other at a comfortable distance both emotionally and physically. Sometimes he’s not aware that a hug is exactly what he needs until Phil wraps the two of them up in a blanket in his attempt to block out the rest of the world. It’s not something he’d ever ask for, because a hug from anyone other than Phil (or any of the Lesters, actually) tends to have the opposite effect. It’s something he never expected to count on, something that grounds him like hardly anything else can. 

Phil places the paint roller back into the tray, moving into Dan’s space and wrapping an arm around his waist. He grabs the roller out of Dan’s hands and does the same, freeing both their hands. 

“Looks decent in here now,” Phil says, wiping something, probably paint, off of Dan’s nose with his thumb. 

“We still have half a wall before it looks decent,” Dan replies, “And another coat or two of paint.”

“Yeah, well, half finished is better than the blue.” 

“We could have just kept your old bedsheets and made it an homage to AmazingPhil’s old branding, though.” Dan says with a smirk, and then promptly dodges the flick to his ear that Phil attempts. 

“That sounds like a nightmare,” Phil teases back, aiming the flick at Dan’s forehead instead so he can’t move away as fast with Phil’s arm keeping him in place. “Bobby from queer eye is rolling in his grave at the thought.”

“Bobby’s not dead, take it back or I’m divorcing you.” 

“We’re not married, one,” Phil says, “And two, we threw the duvet away so that option is fully out.” 

Dan remembers the day they’d thrown out the old blue and green duvet vividly. They hadn’t meant for it to be such a weirdly charged metaphoric moment, but then again they never really do. 

They’d been unpacking the blankets and pillows boxes when Phil had snagged the middle of the already worn duvet on part of the door without realizing, resulting in a giant rip down the patterned outside. Phil had heard the rip, but only upon dumping the pile onto the floor did he notice what had happened. 

He’d sworn, calling to Dan, who had run up the stairs at an astounding speed to see what was wrong. Phil stood in the middle of the room, the same room they were currently painting to be exact, surrounded by bedding and holding up one of the most important pieces of his video backdrop, now ripped beyond repair. 

Dan had said, “We’ll order a new one” immediately. Phil hadn’t responded, looking back and forth from the blanket to Dan, like something out of a cartoon. In the end he’d shaken his head, gathered the whole thing in his arms, and walked past Dan to the hallway, where he’d thrown it next to the staircase into the unofficial junk pile containing things that were too big to fit in the bin.

“I’ll find a new place to film videos.” He’d said with a shrug, trying to pull off casual. 

Dan caught his hand on his way back into the room. The guest room, which they now had to buy a new bed set for. 

“Are you sure?” Dan asked. The hand grasping Phil’s was gentle, a simple reminder that they were in that moment together. 

Phil squeezed his hand, firm. They met eyes.

“I’m ready,” Phil had said, and Dan had believed him. They threw away the duvet later that evening. They had ordered new bedding on amazon, and found a corner of their living room to decorate as Phil’s filming space, and they’d bought the paint. 

And now they’re stood in the middle of the guest room, and their bedroom is down the hall. It’s not Dan’s bedroom, because this room isn’t Phil’s. This home that they’re building, it belongs to both of them, just like everything else has since the day Dan showed up to Phil’s crappy flat in manchester with a duffle bag full of laundry. He’d left two pairs of sweatpants, folded next to Phil’s bed, claiming his territory, and Phil had been happy to share. 

Phil starts his videos with the same chipper, “Hey guys!”, but he wears his glasses and he hasn’t flat ironed his hair in ages. He sits on a pastel blue armchair with a side table next to him and some of the familiar art on the wall behind him. 

He doesn’t mention the change in scenery other than gushing about how great the lighting in the living room is, thanks to the huge windows. 

Their viewers notice, and they don’t hesitate to bring it up. Often. They’ve talked about it more, what it would mean to just tell them that no, Phil doesn’t have his own bedroom because there’s no use reserving a room for him when they’ve slept in the same bed every night for so, so many years. The conversation has shifted, finally, from “if and when” to “how”, and that’s the part they’re still struggling with. 

Their manager suggests a video, which both of them immediately veto in unison. It’s not them, they tell her, to make a video inviting millions of people into their relationship to poke and prod.

Dan goes back and forth on his own ideas for a video, something where he talks about larger concepts and bigger picture instead of focusing all the attention on the two of them. Something like, “sexuality and gender are a construct and people shouldn’t ever have to feel compelled to put themselves in boxes and share those aspects of themselves with anyone!”, and tacking on “by the way me and Phil have been in love for a decade now” near the end. 

Phil tells him to put that on a shelf and think about it, knowing how sensitive he gets when people pick apart his videos. 

“I want this to feel natural and good,” Phil has said, “I don’t want to become a different creator just because people know. I mean, fuck, half of them already know anyway.” 

So they decide to sit in that, this unsure feeling of knowing that they’re both ready. They keep having conversations, and they keep making suggestions, but mostly they just live life a little less careful. They tell people that a dog is on the way, sooner than later if they have anything to say about it. Dan tweets a picture of Phil eating waffles with whip cream all over his face with the caption “cute, @amazingphil”. And Phil never mentions a bedroom. 

The good news is that the main concern of their viewers has shifted back to their perpetually horrible excuse of an upload schedule, which they know how to deal with. They have these conversations in between filming gaming videos and writing scripts and plotting ideas. People keep wanting to see them, keep demanding more content, and they’re still somehow as shocked as ever. 

They’ll get to it, they say, once they fix up the back garden and finish painting this hideous guest room.

“We need to finish this,” Dan says, tilting his head towards the half-painted wall behind them. 

“Wait,” Phil says, pulling Dan closer and planting a feather-light kiss on his nose, “I love you.”

Dan tells himself not to get overwhelmed, not to get suddenly emotional in this new room that smells like fresh paint. It’s just that Phil sometimes says those words with the same weight they held the first time--like he’s telling Dan something new and important. Like he needs him to feel the meaning deep in his bones. 

Dan wraps his arms around Phil’s neck, grabbing at his hair to let him know that he feels it. He kisses him once, then again, and then pulls away with a playful smile. 

“You can love me all you want, babe,” Dan replies, “We still have like, half a wall to finish. And the trim. And then the next coat tomorrow.” 

Phil groans. Dan grabs his roller. They finish the wall meeting in the middle. 

*

“I got an email this morning.” Phil announces upon walking into the room.

“Just one?” Dan asks. He’s in the living room, where he’d escaped to earlier when he’d had the spontaneous urge to read a book and couldn’t focus with Phil’s overly-caffeinated fidgeting. He’s been reading for hours, sat on the window bench with a pillow behind his back. It’s raining, but it’s the kind of spring rain that isn’t freezing and dreadful. It feels productive even if it’s not, sitting by a window and using his brain and letting the feeling of spring showers be contagious. 

It feels fresh. 

Phil knocks the leg of Dan’s that’s spread across the bench onto the floor and sits, propping his laptop on his knees in a way that's a bit precarious. 

“Oh no, I got plenty more.” He says, eyes still focused on the laptop. “This one stood out, though.” 

He looks through emails for a few more seconds before seeming to find the one he’s looking for. He clicks on it and turns the laptop to face Dan, offering it to him to read.  
Dan’s hand immediately flies to his mouth when the first thing he sees is a picture of an entire litter of puppies. They’re fluffy and tiny and the mother dog is in the picture as well, looking proud of herself and too cute for Dan to handle. It takes everything in him not to squeal. 

He takes a breath in, reads over the rest of the message despite how distracting the picture may be. 

“Phiiiiilllllll,” He whines, “look at them, oh my god.” 

“I know,” Phil says, also grinning at the picture, “They’re apparently 13 weeks old, look how little they are!” 

“This is from Denise?” Dan asks, noticing the signature at the bottom of the email, “That old lady across the street? How does she have your email?” 

Phil bites his lip then, looking sheepish and avoiding Dan’s eyes. 

“Um...I may have...given her my email when she told me her dog was having puppies?” Phil says, the last part coming out like a question. Like he thinks Dan might be cross knowing that he’s been laying plans to extend their family together. Like he has anything to be nervous about. 

As if Dan isn’t fully prepared to go adopt a million puppies with Phil at the drop of a hat. Yeah, right. 

“When did you start conspiring with Denise about puppies?” Dan asks, clicking on the picture and zooming in to the pile of curly fur and sausage-shaped puppy bodies. 

“Like...two weeks ago? I think? I was getting the mail and she was just getting back from a walk with Madeline--”

“--Is Madeline the mother?” 

“Yes, Madeline the purebred poodle. Anyway, I waved and complimented the dog--”

“--As you do--”

“--Obviously. Then she told me about how Madeline got out one day and came back pregnant, and then we got on talking about how important it is to get animals fixed and how dog breeding isn’t, like, good, and--”

“And then you told her you’d take one of the puppies?” Dan asks, interrupting Phil before it turns into a whole speech.

“Well, technically I said something along the lines of ‘me and my partner love dogs and would love to come roll around with the puppies once they’re old enough’, but taking one home with us was maybe implied.” Phil says, and Dan knows he’s looking at Phil like lovestruck idiot, but he can’t help it. 

He puts the computer down. He needs to be touching this incredible man who he’s about to go adopt a dog with, who he’s been dreaming about starting a family with and living this beautiful life with since the day they met. 

“How soon can we go?” Dan asks

“I mean...now,” Phil says, and Dan notices he already has shoes on. He laughs, and then leans over to grab Phil’s face to kiss him. 

He gets his shoes on and grabs both of their raincoats from the bedroom, even though they’re only going across the street. Phil is shifting his weight from foot to foot by the front door, emitting waves of chaotic excitement. They grin at each other as they step out into the street and make their way to the purple colored house across from them. 

Denise has buttercups blooming on the walk up to the front door and a tiny, barely noticable pride flag sticker on her front window. Dan nudges Phil with his elbow and gestures to it. Phil shrugs, eyeing the sticker briefly before ringing the doorbell. 

There’s a very soft bark from inside the house at the noise, and then moments later they’re greeted by their elderly neighbor. 

Denise is the type of old woman who brings a plate of brownies to the new neighbors and waves at you from her porch swing when she sees you coming home. Dan and Phil know this, because the brownies she’d brought them had been delicious, and she always seems to be sitting on her adorable little porch swing when they get back. 

She also wears layers upon layers of patterned clothing and so much jewelry that her arms jingle and clank whenever she gestures, which is pretty much constantly. The first time she’d introduced herself she’d called herself a “cranky old witch” and asked them to join her for tea in the same breath. 

She opens the door wide, greeting them cheerfully and inviting them inside. 

“You’re here to see the babies,” she says, leading them upstairs. They both nod. She smiles at them, “You’re both radiating excitement, did you know?”

“We love dogs,” Dan says, meeting eyes with Phil. 

“We’ve only wanted to get one for about, a million years,” Phil tacks on. 

Denise chuckles, “What’s stopped you this long?” 

There’s a beat of silence. They share another look behind Denise’s back before Phil replies, “Just--y’know. Life and all.” 

“I understand that,” Denise says wistfully, “Finally settled down now, though?” 

“Yeah,” Dan says, still looking at Phil, at this person who is his whole world. He’d say they’re at least half settled, definitely on the fast track to getting there. 

They get to a room with a pastel purple door and Denise pushes it open.The middle of the room contains a circle of space sectioned off by baby gates, where Dan counts six fluffy puppies, their energy levels varying from one of them circling around the pen, to two of them curled up together in the corner fast asleep. 

“Oh my god,” Dan says, his voice jumping up into the octave reserved specifically for small, adorable things and whining at Phil. 

Denise chuckles, reaching into the pen to pick up one of the puppies. It’s a black one with thick, curly fur and floppy ears. She holds the wiggling mass out for Phil to take, and Dan takes in the sight of Phil attempting to hold on to the dog while it squirms and nips in excitement. He loves him so much, from the way his eyes crinkle to the quiet little “ah”s and “oh no”s that slip through his lips as he tries to get a better grasp. 

They spend the next half hour on the floor, cooing at puppies and laughing at the way that baby animals seem to have absolutely no control of their own limbs. At one point, Dan has a puppy in his lap and one in his arms, and both of them are nipping at anything they can get a hold of. 

“Mischievous little things,” Denise comments, watching the two grown men giggle as one of the puppies grabs hold of Phil’s jacket sleeve with his mouth and tries to run away with it. 

“I love them all,” Dan says, “Can we take them all?” 

He looks at Phil, laying on his back with a little ball of fur asleep on his chest. 

“Don’t ask me,” Phil says, “You know I’ll say yes and then we’ll be doomed.” 

There’s a very sudden sound on the other side of the door, like something is scratching. Dan and Phil both nearly jump out of their skin at the sound, not expecting to hear anything from the otherwise empty house. Denise had told them that Madeline was asleep in her bedroom, having a break from being a mother of 6 while the three of them entertained the puppies, and one of the first things Dan and Phil had learned about her was that she lives alone. 

Denise doesn’t even flinch at the sound. She sighs, shaking her head a bit and moving to get up out of the armchair she’d been stationed in. 

“That’ll be Boots,” she says, opening the door to reveal the fluffiest cat either of them have ever seen.

The cat, Boots apparently, is a mix of grey and white long hair with the majority of the white fur being concentrated on the tummy and the two front legs, which, fittingly, give the illusion that the cat is wearing tiny white boots. 

Phil eloquently points this out. 

“He’s wearing boots!” He exclaims, seeming absolutely tickled by the combination of cat and clever name. Boots sits in the door frame for about thirty seconds, taking in the scene, before slowly entering the room.

“Indeed,” Denise says, shutting the door again behind Boots as he saunters up to the pen, “my wife’s cat, she picked out the name. Not very original, but fitting if I do say so myself.” 

Dan tilts his head to the side at the mention of a wife.

“I didn’t know you were married,” he says, “I thought you lived alone?” 

“I do live alone,” Denise replies, sounding a bit sad. “My wife, Mary, passed away just two years ago, actually.” 

Dan bites his lip, feeling guilty for bringing it up and making her say those words that he can’t ever even let himself think about. 

“I’m so sorry,” Phil says sincerely. 

Denise nods, holding her hand out for Boots. They all watch as he sniffs her hand cautiously before rubbing his cheek against it once, and then walking back over to the puppy pen. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Denise finally says, “We had...an amazing, wonderful life together. Mary, she--we were two sides of the same coin. Every time I would think, ‘okay, surely this is the most I can possibly love another person’, she proved me wrong. She was special.” 

Dan swallows hard, his throat feeling a bit dry and his emotions feeling a bit prodded at. He looks at Phil and is hardly even surprised to find his partner’s eyes already glued to him. Dan is really good at telling what Phil is feeling just by looking at him, but in this moment he hardly even knows what he himself is feeling. He knows the second their eyes meet that the look on Phil’s face is a reflection of the emotion on his own. They both feel this. They both understand. 

“I’d love to hear more about her someday,” Phil says, and Denise smiles. 

“I have never ending stories, don’t you worry,” she says, and turns her attention back to the scene in the middle of the room. She laughs at what she sees, causing Dan and Phil to look as well. 

Boots has one white paw in one hole of the gate, seeming to reach out for one of the puppies who is sleeping with its back against it. Boots changes the angle slightly when the puppy doesn’t stir, poking his paw through a different hole that lands his paw directly on the puppy’s nose. The puppy awakens finally, and begins whining immediately when it catches sight (or, more realistically, smell) of Boots. 

“Alright, alright, goodness,” Denise says, walking over to pull the puppy out of the pen and place it next to the cat. Boots begins purring immediately, and Denise snorts at him. “These two lovebirds, I swear. Like Romeo and Juliet--can’t be apart for longer than an hour without crying about it.” 

“I can relate,” Dan says, feeling Phil’s eye roll without even needing to look at him. It’s a joke, but they both know it’s kind of true. 

“I worry I’ll never get rid of this one now,” Denise says, “I didn’t even want a bloody cat, just one dog and I was good. Can’t get rid of Boots, though, as he doesn’t tolerate anyone but me and now apparently this little guy.” 

“It’s a shame,” Phil says, moving into the space where Boots and his puppy are snuggling against the wall of the pen, “this one’s the most well-behaved. Would have been my first choice.”

“That’s life,” says Denise, throwing her arms up in mock frustration. 

Something happens in that moment, just as Phil moves to find another puppy to cuddle. It’s one of those moments that Phil will later recount to their friends and family by exclaiming, “It was fate, you guys!” and Dan will have to roll his eyes and tell him to stop being ridiculous, because sometimes things just happen. 

Boots stretches to his feet, leaving the warmth of his puppy counterpart, and calmly saunters right up to where Phil is sitting. Phil stops moving, holding completely still as Boots begins sniffing his knee. The cat busies himself with sniffing every part of Phil he can get to, before eventually plopping down beside him and continuing his purring.

“My god,” Denise says, a delighted grin breaking onto her face at the sight, “Well, that’s never happened before.” 

Phil reaches out to pet soft grey fur, and is rewarded by a gentle headbutt to his hand. He lets out the smallest huff of laughter, like he doesn’t want to scare the cat away with anything louder than a whisper.

“Phil is really good with animals,” Dan says, going back and forth between watching Phil and watching Denise watch Phil. 

Denise shakes her head, seemingly in awe, “No, this is different. I told you boys, I’m a witch. I know soulmates when I see them.” 

It’s Dan’s turn to laugh then, as Boots climbs fully into Phil’s lap. It’s then that the puppy next to the pen, Boots’ puppy, seems to become aware that his friend has left him, as he starts sniffing the air in search of him. Phil notices and makes a soft little kissy sound, and beams when the puppy flops over to him as well. 

His eyes find Dan’s, and he tilts his head silently in a gesture that clearly means “come here,” so Dan crawls the few feet over to where the three of them are sitting. He half expects Boots to run away or hiss or at least tense up when he enters the bubble, but his eyes remain closed and he keeps on purring when Dan scratches behind his ears experimentally. Phil moves the puppy to the tiny amount of space between them, and Dan rolls him onto his back to give his tummy some rubs, cooing at him the whole time. 

“Are either of you allergic to cats?” Denise asks.

Dan says “Phil is” at the same time Phil replies, “I am”. 

They lock eyes. Boots keeps purring. 

“The four of you look like a family,” Denise says. They keep looking at each other. 

Phil’s eyes say, “I want this,” 

Dan’s eyes say, “Fuck it, why not?”

“I haven’t sneezed yet.” Phil says out loud, and Denise laughs. 

They sit like that for a few more minutes, talking about logistics and whether or not it’s a good idea to go from no pets to two all at once, especially when one of the two could cause Phil’s allergies to flare up at any moment. Dan says they have the time and the space and Phil mentions that people with cat allergies live with cats all the time. Denise sits quietly and let’s them talk. In the end, they can’t find an argument stronger than the fact that it simply feels...right. 

She lends them an old leash and empties some of the giant bag of puppy food into a tupperware for them, and sends them with one of Boots’ litter boxes and his food dish as well. She tells them that Boots is the most spoiled cat in the world and they can come grab the rest of his things whenever they get around to it. 

She hugs them goodbye, which is something neither of them are entirely prepared for as they both have their arms full of an animal, but she smells like lavender and it feels, somehow, like hugging an old friend. 

“Take good care of those two,” she says with a smile as she sends them into the rain with their two newest family members, “they’re very special.”

***

“Curly fry?” Phil suggests, his bare feet cold against the tile of the kitchen. Still not warm enough to be without socks, apparently. He’s got a coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. He’s also barely resisting the urge to pull up a baby names website for inspiration

“No, a name can’t be two separate words,” Dan says from where he’s sat on the floor, installing the baby gate into the doorway. 

They’ve just gotten back from their trip to the pet store, and Phil doesn’t even want to think about how many things they’d bought that they truly don’t need. Whatever this puppy's name is, he’s going to be spoiled absolutely rotten. 

“Brownie?” He suggests, his creativity wearing off after the two of them swapping names all morning, “Mocha?”

“You’re just hungry at this point,” Dan replies, “Why are we so bad at this?”

“We can name him Susan.” 

“Did you know that you genuinely annoy me sometimes?”

“Gotta keep you on your toes somehow.” 

“Oh, is that it?”

Dan stands up, picking up the unnamed puppy from the floor and walking over to where Phil is standing. 

“Hello, gorgeous.” Phil greets him as Dan and the puppy enter his space, putting his phone on the counter and reaching for Dan. 

“Hi,” Dan says, looking proud of himself for his handiwork with the gate. 

“I was talking to the dog,” Phil teases, his free hand landing on the back of Dan’s head.

“I swear to god,” Dan replies, still grinning, before meeting him in the middle for a kiss. It’s a weird angle and there’s an overexcited puppy and a mug of coffee between them, but it’s still nice. It’s still always so fucking nice, and Phil feels so lucky. 

“We should ask the internet for dog names,” Phil says when they part. 

“As in like, twitter?” Dan asks, “Or google?” 

“Both, I don’t know,” Phil replies, “I got nothing.”

They spend twenty minutes on the floor with the puppy, holding treats at different angles to try to get him to pose for a picture worthy of his social media debut. They get a few good ones, and one amazing one with him jumping on his back legs, front paws in the air as he leaps for the treat that Phil is holding just above his head. 

It’s only a few minutes into the photoshoot that Boots makes an appearance, hopping gracefully over the baby gate and directly into the shot. Dan gets a few good pictures of just Boots as well before the two animals lose interest in the camera and the treats and curl up together in the middle of the floor. Dan gets a picture of that as well. It’s the best one by far. 

Daniel Howell @Danielhowell  
meet the two newest members of the dan and phil household! these two were basically a package deal so we got two for the price of one. Boots (the cat) is antisocial and hates everyone but seems to tolerate phil and this unnamed puppy and i can relate pic.twitter.com/UYUOBKLsjdY

Phil Lester @Amazingphill  
We got a dog! (And a cat, oops). The cat is named Boots but we’re still thinking of a name for the pupper, anyone have any suggestions? pic.twitter.com/POWFDSAhgf

The responses, as usual, vary from excited keysmashing to thoughtful congratulations. The name suggestions are...interesting, but there’s actually quite a few good ones under all the suggestions of “susan” and “phan”. 

“This person said you and the puppy are twins,” Phil says, showing him a tweet someone made with a picture of him for comparison. Dan wants to argue, but he has to admit there is a bit of a resemblance, especially since it’s an old picture of him when his hair was longer, one of the rare days he’d not bothered to straighten his hair and regretted it as soon as a camera had been pointed on him. It’s not the worst thing to be compared to, though. Bad hair decisions and all. 

They look through tweets and comments together, both of them leaning against the counter while the pets doze entertain each other at their feet. Boots leaves his spot by the puppy in favor of coming to weave between their legs, rubbing the side of his face on their calves. 

“He’s claiming us,” Phil says in amusement.

“He’s valid to do so,” Dan replies, and then shoves his phone under Phil’s nose for him to look at, “look at this tweet.”

Phil pushes his glasses further up his nose and takes the phone to look, smiling as he reads it. 

@daniellhowell The puppy looks like a teddy bear! So cute!

“Teddy,” Dan says, and Phil is already nodding. 

“It’s fitting,” Phil says, looking at the dozing puppy. 

“Cute enough for a dog, but just human enough to be kind of weird,” Dan explains excitedly. Phil is just excited to stop referring to him as, “the dog”. It’s much too ominous for something so adorable. Teddy sounds much better. 

“Teddy it is.” Phil says. 

***

Boots is curled up on Dan’s lap when Phil walks into the room, holding his phone while while Teddy the poodle wiggles in his arms. 

“My mum just texted to confirm the days for their stay at Hotel Dan and Phil,” he says. 

Dan sighs, letting his head fall to the back of the sofa with a thud. Phil nearly drops his phone in an attempt to get Teddy to calm down after his excitement of seeing Dan and Boots. He brings Teddy to the sofa, setting him down next to the two of them but keeping his hands firmly on either side of the puppy’s wiggling frame. Teddy begins licking Boots’ face immediately, and Dan thanks the universe and any cat-creating gods for giving Boots the patience it takes to sit calmly and let it happen, instead of trying to escape and using his sharp claws to injure everyone in the process. 

“How long are they going to be here?” Dan asks, trying to keep the dread out of his voice. He loves Phil’s family, honestly a bit more than his own most of the time, but this visit has been sitting in the pit of his stomach and stirring up anxiety for a week now. 

“Three days,” Phil replies, and Dan can tell he’s right there with him in terms of anxiety levels. 

Phil had said, over take out on the sofa one night, that they were going to have to invite his parents over at some point, and Dan had agreed enthusiastically. They haven’t seen the Lesters since Phil’s birthday, nearly three months ago. Moving had been a lot, and puppies are a lot more work than either of them had fully anticipated. Now that Teddy is approaching 4 months on earth and 3 weeks with them, his never ending sleepiness is definitely wearing off. 

He’s pretty much glued to at least one of their sides at all time, unless he’s napping with Boots. Other than that he doesn’t seem to sleep, which is a fun new development for both of their sleep schedules. 

They’d been doing their best to set firm boundaries, putting him in the kitchen at night with the baby gate up and trying their hardest to ignore his whining. They’d texted Louise a few days ago, asking her if it ever gets easier listening to a baby crying. 

(“It’s a dog. Pull yourselves together.” was all she’d responded with, followed by a string of heart emojis)

“That’s perfectly manageable,” Dan says, not sure who he’s trying to convince. 

They’re both excited to see the Lesters. That’s never even a question, Phil being the self-proclaimed mama’s boy that he is and Dan craving the validation and warmth Kath brings into every space she inhabits. Phil’s family is just as amazing and lovely as him. 

It’s just that both of them have been living in this bubble for months now, in this home that swallows them whole and feels like forever. They’ve had a few people over, sure. It’s not like they’ve spent a month and a half completely isolated from their friends and family. They’ve filmed videos and shown a few corners and walls to the unseen entity that is their audience. This feels different though.

Martyn and Cornelia had oo’d and ahh’d and even told them how proud they were the first time they’d come over. They’d played with Teddy attempted to woo Boots to no avail. It had felt great to let the two of them into this, even for a bit, but it was always different with parents. 

Maybe it was just Dan, but he knew Phil felt similarly. Parents are more, they see deeper and they care louder. At least, Phil’s parents do. 

So yes, they’re both a bit nervous to share this honeymoon stage with the house and the dog and the life they seem to have pulled straight from a dream with anyone for longer than a few hours. Phil is a bit nervous about having people in this space that has been theirs, theirs, and only theirs up until this point. Dan is a bit nervous that it’ll feel less perfect when under the judgement of someone else’s parents, even if Phil has told him a million times that Kath and Nigel aren’t like that. Some habits and anxieties die hard. He’s working on it. 

Teddy leaps from the couch to the floor, scrambling clumsily with all four of his adorable little puppy legs. Dan let’s out a huff of laughter at his antics. 

“Kath is gonna love him,” he says, smiling. 

“She keeps referring to him and Boots as her grandchildren,” Phil says, rolling his eyes, “I think she’s trying to give me a hint.” 

“We’re waiting at least a year until we take on any more babies,” Dan says, flopping his head to the side to look at Phil, “especially if the next step is actual human ones.”

“Agreed.” Phil says, a cheeky grin appearing on his face, “You can tell her that.” 

***

Phil’s parents’ stay begins with Dan and Phil groggily picking them up from the train station at 7 am, Teddy whining in Phil’s lap and doing absolutely nothing for the headache he’s rocking from lack of sleep. The music Dan is blasting is bass-heavy and makes Phil grit his teeth and then instantly regret it when that, too sends splitting pain into his head.  
He’s asked Dan twice to turn it down, and, in Dan’s defense, he’s turned it down both times. It’s just that he’s got one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand is held up to his mouth as he bites his thumb nail nervously, and Phil knows that he’s only half in this plane of existence right now. He can’t really be blamed for the way his hand moves without his permission, going to the volume knob practically out of necessity.

Phil’s not sure if he’s trying to drown out his thoughts or get farther lost in them. He just knows it’s too early for introspection. Teddy whines again. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Phil says. 

“Me or the dog?” Dan asks, his eyes still focused on the road. 

“Both,” Phil says. “But I have to say, your whining is slightly more justified than Teddy’s.”

“He’s a baby!” Dan says, slipping into his puppy voice. He adds, a second later back at his normal octave, “And I’m literally not whining. I’m being completely quiet”

“You’re thinking too loud.” Phil says, and Dan gives a small snort of laughter. 

Ten minutes later they’re in the parking lot, and Phil notices that for the first time in a month, it doesn’t look like rain is in the forecast. The sky is clear and the air is crisp in a way that ruffles his hair but doesn’t make him cold.

He puts Teddy down on the pavement and then immediately picks him back up when he starts tugging on his leash after seeing a squirrel. He looks pathetically up at Phil, like he’s disappointed that he won’t let him harass the wildlife.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, Theodore.” He says, smiling when Dan laughs softly at them. 

Phil’s phone buzzes as his mum texts him that they’re off the train and headed to the parking lot to meet them, and then moments later his parents are in front of them. Kath squeals and takes Teddy from his arms before she even greets them, bringing his nose parallel to hers and cooing at him incomprehensibly. 

“Good to see you two,” his dad says as a greeting, genuinely looking happy as ever to see them. He pulls Phil in for a hug first, and then does the same for Dan. “Your mum will be pleased to see you too, I’m sure, once someone takes the puppy from her.” 

“I can’t be trusted around babies and you know this,” Kath replies, dropping the puppy voice and handing Teddy over to Phil’s dad. She turns to Phil and opens her arms for a hug. “Hello, child, we’ve missed you loads.” 

‘Hi, mum,” Phil says, leaning into the hug. “Glad you’re not replacing me with my own dog,” 

Phil’s headache doesn’t go away the second his mum takes him in her arms, but it might as well. She must sense that he’s been needing this, because she holds on for just a few extra seconds, rubbing his back and giving it a firm pat before letting go. She squeezes his arm when she pulls away and brushes a stray strand of hair off his face, showering him in the comforting gestures he’d grown so reliant on in his youth. He never feels how much he misses his mother’s presence until she’s there, radiating comfort and safety like it’s nothing. 

She turns her attention to Dan then, giving him a hug that looks every bit as lovely as the one Phil just got, and Phil becomes suddenly overwhelmed by the moment. There’s something about the way Dan falls just as willingly into the hug that makes him realize just how far the two of them have come. 

All those years ago, Dan had confessed over a grainy skype call that other people’s parents scare him, and Phil had nodded even though he didn’t fully understand. Now he did understand, being the biggest expert on Dan’s backstory as anyone ever could be. Phil knows that the anxiety still sometimes builds in Dan’s head before a visit, like it had for both of them before today, but he also feels the tension leave both of their shoulders as the four of them, plus Teddy, get into the car. He watches Dan smile and laugh at his mum’s singing and his dad’s puns. He smiles to himself when he notices the sun shining through the window, creating a halo of light around Dan’s head. 

Dan catches him staring at one point and gives him a look. Phil ignores it. Teddy barks at nothing and the whole car shushes him. Phil’s mum goes back to complaining about the train and swearing that next time they come to visit, they’re driving. 

They get to the house in a blur of laughter and teasing, and his mum gasps as they pull into the driveway despite having seen pictures of the exterior already. Dan takes Teddy to the back to go to the bathroom while Phil takes his parents on a tour around the house. His mum keeps telling them both how lovely the house is, and how it’s so perfectly them.

They tell her that they agree, and her eyes get a little bit misty. Phil’s dad keeps patting them on the back. 

The moment lasts for a few minutes, and then they Phil suggests that they play scrabble and the normality of any other visit with his family sets in, stays with them for the remainder of their time together. They spend the next few days taking Kath and Nigel out to their favorite places to eat and showing them their new neighborhood. They play board games and watch movies, and when Martin and Cornelia show up the second night, it feels like a whole Lester Family event: loud and chaotic and so full of love. 

The morning of the third and final day of the visit, Dan takes Teddy on a walk and Phil’s mum joins him. They come back with cheeks flushed from the crisp morning air and giant smiles upon their faces. Phil is making coffee when they come back in, and Dan plants a kiss on his cheek and then holds Teddy up to do the same. Kath coos at the sight from the breakfast bar and then demands a coffee for herself. 

“You can’t mother me in my own home!” Phil exclaims. He pulls a mug from the cabinet anyway.

“I can and will mother you anywhere I please, Philip Michael Lester.” she says sternly, and Dan chuckles at him as the two of them move effortlessly around each other. Dan fills the kettle and turns the stove on, rummaging in the cabinet for a tea bag. Phil slides his mum the mug of coffee. Phil’s dad joins them and they all decide to find a brunch spot, as none of them have eaten and it’s nearly eleven. 

They find a cute little cafe that serves breakfast until 2pm and they all squeeze into a booth by the window. They order and make comfortable conversation with each other until the food arrives, and it feels like the same level of comfort and warmth that it’s felt the whole visit. Until it doesn’t. 

Phil can’t even recall how or why the topic of work comes up, probably his dad if he’s being honest, but he nearly drops his fork when his mum asks, clearly going for a casual tone and missing the mark just slightly, “So, what does the move mean for you two, you know….online?”

The thing is, he’s used to his parents asking questions like this, like they don’t fully understand this job he and Dan seem to have tripped and fallen into. It’s not that they haven’t tried to understand, or that they’re not supportive. They know how hard the two of them work. He knows that now, and he doesn’t blame them for the generational misunderstanding of all things internet. He doesn’t usually mind explaining things in excruciating detail to his parents who mean well and just want to make sure he’s happy and thriving. 

They’ve had this conversation before as well, just in a completely different context. The last time they talked about this, he and Dan were on shaky footing and in a whole lot of emotional turmoil. Phil had called his mum about the leak, and cried when she’d asked if he was ok. He’d told her he wasn’t ready, not yet, maybe not ever, for people to know about this part of him and this part of his relationship. He wasn’t ready to be a Gay Youtuber. He just wanted to be himself. He’d told her all of this, and she’d listened, and she’d kept that memory of him and never pushed him to talk about the Coming Out Thing since. 

Until now, apparently. 

And he gets it, he does, because people don’t usually buy a house and adopt two pets with their platonic friends, especially not straight guys. His mum knows this, he knows this, almost all of their fans know this. It’s not like this exact fact hadn’t been the main thing pushing them to come to a conclusion about the coming out thing in the first place. 

It doesn’t mean Phil isn’t still a bit shocked at the topic being brought up while he attempts to shove eggs into his mouth in the middle of brunch. 

Luckily, Dan saves him from looking like an idiot.

“People know that we bought a house together and now have two adopted, fuzzy children,” he says. He sounds confident, and any person who’s not Phil could look at him and buy into that tone, but Phil is Phil and he knows that Dan bites his lip when he’s nervous. Dan’s teeth dig into his bottom lip for the briefest of moments and Phil puts his hand on his thigh. 

“We’re not...one hundred percent sure how to go about it,” Phil says, “But we’re not, not coming out?” 

Kath nods, looking thoughtful. She takes a bite of her toast and they all let the silence hang in the air for a moment. 

A few beats of silence later, his mum speaks with a smile on her face.

“Philip,” she says, making sure she has his full attention. 

“Mum,” he replies.

“Do you remember the day you told me about the two of you?” she asks, and Phil nods. 

“Vaguely, but yes.” He says.

“I remember every detail,” his mum says. “The thing was, I don’t think you even planned to do it--I was harassing you about who you were always talking to on that phone of yours, and you must have gotten annoyed at me because you looked me in the eye and said, ‘i’m texting my boyfriend, mum’, and that was the end of that.”

Phil smiles sheepishly at the memory, looking down at his plate. 

“Right, I do remember that,” he says, “I was such a brat.”

“Maybe you were a bit brattish,” his mum says, and then waits a beat until Phil looks back up at her before saying, “but mostly what I remembered from that conversation is how stern you were about it. You didn’t give me any way in to prod you about what it meant for you to have a boyfriend, just that you had one and you clearly liked him a lot, if the amount you were texting was anything to go off of.”

“Sorry,” Dan says, a smile playing on his lips, “I was needy back then.”

“‘Back then’,” Phil scoffs, “You’re still needy.”

Dan kicks him under the table. Phil’s dad laughs at them.

“Watch it,” Dan warns. Phil’s mum watches them and smiles, and then reaches out across the table to take each of their hands in one of hers. 

“I think you two know your life and your love the best,” she says, squeezing their hands, “and whatever you choose to do is up to you, but I think your best bet is to take a page out of your own book. You can be honest and firm at the same time.” 

“Honest and firm,” Phil repeats, meeting Dan’s eyes. They look a little bit watery, which isn’t a huge surprise. Dan gets teary almost every time Kath gives the two of them a mum talk. They’re all used to it. 

“I love you both,” Kath says, giving their hands a final squeeze. 

They both say, “I love you too” in unison, and Dan adds a quiet “Thanks, mum.”

Kath smiles, her eyes also looking a bit damp. She dabs at her eyes with her napkin and Dan does the same, and the four of them manage to finish their food without any more waterworks.

They drive Phil’s parents back to the train station that evening, leaving Teddy at home this time. They exchange more hugs and Dan and Phil promise to come up north sooner rather than later, as long as they can find someone to watch their chaotic puppy and antisocial cat. 

The drive back home is quiet. Dan has an instrumental playlist playing, softer than he’d usually play it. Phil grabs his hand and intertwines their fingers, letting his eyes fall shut. He’s tired, but it’s a good feeling to know that he can spend the next few days at home, not socializing with anyone but his boyfriend and his pets. It’s a promising sort of tired, one that he knows will go away with enough rest. 

“You’re mum is the smartest person I know,” Dan says just as Phil starts feeling like he might fall asleep. He smiles, not bothering to open his eyes. 

“She is.”

***

In the end, it’s Phil’s mum’s words that push them to do it. 

They don’t end up making a video, not in an official sense, but they do write script after script of what that would look like if they were going to. 

The plan is to write a script for a video that’s good enough to change their own minds about how much they don’t want to make a video at all. They get a few good ones out of it, but every time they sit down to actually record it, it’s like there's something stopping them from doing it. 

One particular time, they get half way through the script and Dan just gets up and walks out of the room. They take a few days of a break after that one, recording 3 gaming videos to queue up for later instead. 

It’s a week after the last time they attempt to film a video that Phil looks over Dan’s shoulder and sees him reading the scripts. 

“Babe…” he says cautiously, “we really don’t have to make a video. I don’t even want to, honestly. We’ll figure out another way.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Dan says in reply. He sounds distracted. Phil scoots closer and tries to get a better look at the screen.

He watches as Dan highlights one line of the script and the clicks into another tab, revealing yet another one of their failed scripts with more highlighted lines. 

“What are you up to?” Phil asks. 

‘I’m trying to figure out what it is that we’re actually trying to say.” Dan says, “I do this with my own videos sometimes. If I find myself waffling about for ages, I pull out the stuff that keeps coming up and refocus the video on that.” 

Phil nods. He usually goes between being horrified by Dan’s writing process and being a bit in awe of how much thought really does go into his videos. Right now he’s the later. 

“So what are we saying?” Phil asks. “Psychoanalyze us.” 

Dan snorts, extending his elbow out the slightest bit so that it taps Phil in the chest. 

“One, shut up,” Dan says, “Two--honestly? The thing that comes up the most in these is how much we love each other. Like, it’s kind of gross. I’m disgusted.”

“I do love you a disgusting amount.” Phil says. Dan huffs and closes the laptop, giving Phil his full attention. 

“Same, but the entire internet doesn’t need to know how gross and soppy we are.” 

“Hate to break it to you, but I think they already know.” Phil says, “I’m still thinking about what my mum said.” 

“About being honest yet firm?” Dan asks, and Phil nods. 

“Yeah, it’s like--with my mum,” Phil says, “I knew she already knew something was up, and me telling her I had a boyfriend--that was the honestly, but it was also me being firm. I didn’t say, ‘mum i’m bi’, and let her ask me a bunch of questions or turn it into a whole conversation. I just told her who I was texting, same as if she would have asked Martyn who he was texting and he’d had a new girlfriend.”

“What’s your point?” Dan asks, and he’s looking at Phil intently.  
“My point,” He says, running his hand through his hair, “Is that we don’t owe anyone an explanation. We don’t have to have this huge conversation about sexuality and labels and privacy--we can, and I think we probably should, but not right now.” 

“Right now we should focus on the being in love part,” Dan says, finishing Phil’s thought perfectly. 

“Exactly.” 

“I still don’t know what that looks like, though.” 

Phil shrugs. 

“I mean, with me and my mum I just let it happen when it happened.” he says, and Dan grins. 

“So we should just live our lives and film videos until one of us lets it slip that we’ve been together for a decade?” Dan asks. 

Phil laughs, “Gross but yeah, like--same us, just unedited.”

“Unedited,” Dan says. He shakes his head, looking overwhelmed but excited at the idea, “Alright, sure.”

 

***

What it looks like doesn’t end up being one thing. 

It looks like multiple moments, all showing a shift and a promise of more honesty. 

It looks like Dan posting a picture of Phil asleep in their bed, Teddy curled up next to him and Boots on his chest, and captioning it “cat allergies who? @amazingphil doesn’t know her”. 

It looks like Phil wearing Dan’s jumper during a liveshow and claiming, “It’s cozy!” to the chat when someone points out that it definitely belongs to Dan and not Phil.

It looks like countless moments in joint videos where one of them is looking at the other like a lovestruck fool for just a second too long, and none of them getting cut out. It looks like the same fond looks and flirty banter as always, but turned up a notch because they’ve talked about it and they both know it’s okay to not censor themselves. 

It eventually looks like Dan letting the words “the bedroom” slip in a liveshow and almost backtracking before he realizes that it’s fine. They want this. He spends the rest of the liveshow flustered and distracted, trying to fill the space with his own ramblings so he can avoid the chat, which at this point is just every person repeating his same words back to him in caps. 

It looks like almost everyone assuming they’re together, especially people who haven’t met them before. They stop correcting people when they refer to them as a couple, because that’s what they are. It looks like acquaintances and coworkers texting them, “Did I miss something?” and friends texting them, “so are you coming out or what?”. They reply to all of them with responses that basically mean “yeah, kinda”. 

It looks like holding hands and hugging in public, and not holding back on touching each other. It looks like more dates and less urgency to hide it, sometimes even snapping pictures of their meals and tagging each other in them on social media. 

One day, near the end of may, it looks like someone in the chat on Phil’s liveshow asking where the pets are and Phil responding, “Dan is being the worst boyfriend in the world and hogging them both,” and not even realizing what he’s said until the chat turns into an ocean consisting solely of the word “boyfriend”. 

It looks like sifting and sifting and sifting through comments and tweets and questions to find the ones they feel comfortable responding to, but that part isn’t even new. The rude people will always seem louder than the respectful ones, because the rude people send 6 messages in a row in all caps, but it doesn’t mean that the majority of their fanbase isn’t still wonderful. 

Honestly, after a while, it looks the same as it always has. The fans still tweet them and demand a proper upload schedule, which, really, they are working on. They still make gaming videos and main channel videos and they don’t lose or gain any dramatic amounts of subscribers. They still upload videos and life still happens around them. 

Mostly it just looks like them: two guys living in a house with a dog and a cat, making videos for the internet, except now they don’t hide the fact that they’re also disgustingly in love with each other and have been the whole time. 

***

The second to last day of spring finds them out back in the garden, picking lettuce that they’d planted in April and trying to shoo Teddy away from the flowerbed. 

Dan has a daffodil tucked behind his ear because Phil had put it there ten minutes ago, and the sun is starting to feel hot on their arms. They’re both just sitting in the grass absorbing the warmth at this point, no real reason to be out here anymore other than that this patch of grass is theirs and they can be here all they want. 

The garden is definitely a beginner-level garden. They’d gotten tons and tons of seed packets and flower bulbs, but only managed to actually plant a few daffodils, some tulips, lettuce, green beans, and peas. It’s still nice to see something growing, though, and there lettuce had actually been super successful. They’ve already promised each other that next year they’re going to make a bigger effort once they don’t have a million things going on at once. 

“Spring was kind of our season this year,” Dan says, thinking out loud. Phil hums in agreement, and Dan looks over to see Phil already looking at him, a lazy sort of awe on his face that makes Dan blush to see it directed at him. 

“It was,” Phil responds. He’s looking directly at Dan, yet he somehow sounds distracted. 

“What are you thinking about?” Dan asks. It’s not usually something he has to inquire, but there’s a part of him that just always wants to know what’s in Phil’s head, and the question escapes his lips without his permission. 

There’s a beat of silence, and then Phil is saying, “I have a question.” 

“Go on.” Dan says, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He plucks a piece of grass from the ground beneath him. Phil keeps looking at him. 

“Marry me.” 

The words tumble unceremoniously from Phil’s lips, and Dan stops breathing for a moment. The words catch Dan off guard, knocking the breath right out of his lungs. Phil is looking at him with all the love in the world in his blue green eyes, and Dan is suddenly so incredibly overwhelmed. When he regains the ability to breathe, he notices that Phil is grinning now, taking in what is probably a million emotions running across Dan’s face. 

“I--” Dan starts, and gets cut off by his own nervous laughter, “That’s not a question, Phil.” 

“Is that a no?” Phil asks, his smile still as radiant. 

Like he knows, the little shit, exactly how much Dan is in love with him. He’s smiling at him like he knows that Dan could never say no to him, would never want to, and now he’s just waiting for the “yes” to come, whenever Dan is ready. Dan wants so badly to kiss that look off of his face. 

“Like, it’s a yes,” he says, and he’s grinning too, because how could he not be? “But also, sell me on the idea at least a little bit, babe.”

Phil laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The sun is behind him and on his skin and making every freckle on his nose stand out. He’s beautiful. Dan can hardly believe he’s being proposed to by someone as lovely and gorgeous as this man before him.

“Well,” Phil says, “since I know it’s a yes I’ll give you the whole speech.” 

He moves to get up, pushing himself off the ground and then pulling Dan up with him. Phil grabs both of Dan’s hands and holds them in his own, looking him directly in the eyes. 

“Daniel James Howell,” Phil starts, “I--”

“--Aren’t you supposed to be on one knee?” Dan interrupts, because he may be overwhelmed with emotion right now but this is still them. It’s still the two of them, being ridiculous and stupid and constantly trying to make the other laugh. 

“Shut up, we’re equals,” Phil says, “anyway--Dan, you are...my world. You’ve been next to me every step for the past 10 years, and they have easily been the best years of my life. I didn’t know I could love someone so much until I met you, and I just--I can’t thank you enough for letting me love you like this. I--fuck.” 

Phil pauses, laughing when his voice breaks and the first few tears fall from his eyes. Dan is right there with him, laughing and using his shirt sleeve to dry both of their faces.

“You’re falling apart, Lester,” He teases, his voice thick with emotion, “Pull yourself together or your reputation is in the garbage.” 

Phil shakes his head at him, taking a breath before starting again. 

“As I was trying to say,” He says, sounding a bit less shaky, “I still remember that first time we talked, and wondering why, after so long of feeling weird and distant from almost everyone, I could talk to you so easily. I know you don’t believe in soulmates, but I think that if they do exist, you’re mine, and if they don’t exist, we’re the closest thing we’ll ever get.” 

Dan lets a watery laugh escape, and Phil barrels on.

“I can’t believe where we are right now, in this house with our dog and a bloody cat,” Phil says, taking a breath, “This life that we’ve been waiting for and dreaming about, it feels like it’s here and we’re living some sort of fever dream. I want to live in this house with you forever, and I want to turn the guest room into a nursery and take cooking classes with you and get old and wrinkly and have a million stories of our lives together like Denise has about Mary, or like how my parents have about each other.”

Phil squeezes Dan’s hands, pulls them a bit closer. Dan presses their foreheads together, and they’re practically embracing when Phil finally gets to the end of his speech. 

“So,” He says, letting go of Dan’s hands to press his own to either side of Dan’s face, “Daniel Howell, I know you already said yes, but will you marry me?”

Dan doesn’t even answer before he’s crashing his lips to Phil’s, heated and wet and so full of emotion. He wraps his arms around Phil’s neck and feels Phil’s arms move to his waist. They stand there, kissing and crying, for an unknown amount of time until Phil pulls away. 

“That was another yes, by the way,” Dan says, his face red and splotchy. 

“We’re engaged.” Phil says, and Dan laughs. 

“We just told people we’re boyfriends,” He says, “They’re gonna be so confused.”

“Yeah, well, they can deal with it,” Phil says, “I’m gonna be here, being too happy and engaged to care.” 

They end up kissing some more, until eventually Teddy demands their attention again and they have to wrangle him back inside.

That night they sit out on the front steps with Boots, letting the evening sit on their shoulders while the cat purrs between them. They let Teddy come out too, on a short leash, when he won’t stop whining behind the door. 

“I wish our house was purple like Denise’s” Phil says, breaking the calm silence that surrounds them. 

Dan laughs, tilting his head to get a better look at the outside of the house behind them. 

“It’s not as ugly in the moonlight.” Dan says, “Much less swampy.”

“I wouldn’t call it ugly, per se…” Phil says, sounding slightly defensive. 

“You’re right,” Dan says, pulling a dozing Teddy onto his lap, “It’s not ugly. It’s unique.” 

“Sure,” Phil says, and he’s smiling.

It’s theirs, and it’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic, dear god. This thing is basically my baby and i'm so excited that it's out in the world now! I've been thinking about, working on, and crying over this fic for what seems like ages but was honestly like? a couple weeks? Anyway, this is my contribution the the Spring/New Beginnigs Phandom Fic fest! Thank you so much for reading and thanks even more to my two lovely betas, @oncelonelydreamers and @quercussp on tumblr, without whom I would not have had a fic to publish at all. You two are amazing cheerleaders and i'm so thankful to have had such great support! Special thanks to Grace for holding my hand through the whole process and just chilling in the google doc with me and commenting on almost every line. You're so special <3
> 
> I'm gonna post this on my tumblr as well as soon as I get the chance, so go ahead and reblog it over at @freckliephil if you feel so inclined! It's a pretty new blog so i'll take all the attention I can get, lol
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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